


hive outta hell

by anonymousAlchemist



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen, LOOK SOMETIMES YOU WRITE FANFIC FOR THE SMALLEST FANDOM IN THE WORLD OK, M/M, idiot party on idiot adventures, tbh if you like my taz fanfic this might hit but im not promising much, theres no point tagging anyone it its ocs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29910891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousAlchemist/pseuds/anonymousAlchemist
Summary: it is a beautiful day in Rahm and you are a horrible party.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	1. timestamp: post-hell

**Author's Note:**

> this is a fanfic that exists because "isabel gets weird and obsessive about random things and gets embarrassed about how one of these things is her longrunning dnd game" and "isabel wants to put her dnd fanfic snippets in a place rather than just have them live in a literal text file that she edits in sublime text 2" 
> 
> here are our heroes: 
> 
> THE PARTY:   
> vannath kinson: half-demon wild magic sorcerer, son of a time demon and a random lady, a prince of the seven hells, Just Wants To Be Normal. i know if i say "i didnt make him an anime protagonist the dm did it to me" you wont believe me, but. looks like he could kill you, is a cinnamon roll. 
> 
> charmie tebi: half-elf bard, chaos gremlin, plays exclusively video game music, rock star in training, opener for esteemed bard, Video James. looks like a cinnamon roll, will kill you. 
> 
> lillian vantablack: dragonborn rogue, runaway princess from Fangdolin, wearing a magic cloak that changes her scales from black to gold. her little brothers are named anish and seth. yes. this is a reference. equal parts could kill you and cinnamon roll. 
> 
> THE EVERYONE ELSE: 
> 
> aramil: van's boyfriend, huge nerd, quest giver, kinda an asshole, very smart! canonically does not wear glasses but i headcanon he does 
> 
> helga: human fighter. very strong. smokewheat420 blaze it. has a strong russian accent. except russia doesnt exist here. i love her. 
> 
> veronica "vee" lily lacewing walpole: tiefling warlock. van's cousin, born and raised in the seven hells. party girl. casts magic using daddy's credit card. literally eats hearts. 
> 
> arktun: demon time king in the seven hells. van's dad. 
> 
> psychoticus: demon torture warlock patron. likes golf and torturing the souls of innocents. vee's dad. 
> 
> grimp: he's grimp! 
> 
> video james: premier musician of the modern era

_PREVIOUSLY IN THIS GAME: Van was resurrected, the party escaped from the Seven Hells, and now we've camped in N'goza, a big city in Rahm_

Vannath Kinson sits on the edge of the roof, looking over the N'gozan sunset. It's wild seeing the sun again, having the regular passing of days to mark time passing. The Seven Hells had a lot of things, but sunlight and blue skies weren't one of them. It's still strange to be back on the material plane, even a few months out. It's strange to have his life be his own again. 

(It's strange to be alive again)

The sun creeps lower onto the horizon, over the towers and minarets and rooftops, over the great dome of the university library. He pulls his cloak tighter around his shoulders. He should probably go inside soon, he's on dinner duty tonight, along with Charmie, and she'll give him all sorts of shit if he doesn't show up. And she'll do it in front of everyone, too. Public humiliation: the bard's best weapon. 

Van smiles to himself as he thinks about it. His friends are ridiculous. He's glad that Lillian and Charmie and Aramil decided to stick around, and the he decided to stick around, and even though Helga's on the road walking home, she messages them almost every day, asking if they've been in any good fights. Which, so far they haven't. N'goza is... peaceful. Or not peaceful, but _civilized_ in a way that the Seven Hells weren't, or rather, not a _lack_ of civilization but a civilization that was guided along principles slightly adjacent to normal material plane ethics, which is what Aramil says but Van doesn't really know anything about that. Mostly Van agrees with Charmie's view on the subject: Arktun sucked shit, and the parts of the Seven Hells that sucked shit were entirely his fault. 

It's funny that her opinion of Arktun hadn't changed, even though she was basically a general in his army. It's funny, in a way, that his friends are still fundamentally the same people he remembers. There wasn't any time to talk about it, after he crashed his way out of the egg, there was a lot going on and then they were fighting Regdar again and then he had a cousin? and then they were going through to the material plane and then fucking _Video James_ was there and there was never any time to talk about what happened during the past year. 

Oh sure, they filled Van in, over a lot of conversations over lunches and dinners that kind of went in circles and described exciting battles, and Aramil told them about his past year with Koltar, but there's no good way to say "So I missed a year, huh? I missed a year and it's like nothing changed, so maybe you don't need me?" There's no good way to say "Sorry all I did was die and you had to get out of hell on your own but it looks like you didn't need me to get out of hell? So whatever?" 

Van sighs. Watches the sun sink lower. He's brooding on a rooftop. He's pathetic. It's all ego, anyway. Ego and jealousy. He'll keep all his feelings in here and one day he'll die. It's just that no one else... seems to feel at all perturbed about being back in the material plane. Like, everyone's _moved on_. Lil's disappearing every night, presumably to do rogue shit, and she always comes back smelling like smoke. Charmie's been shadowing VJ and playing backup for him, which is crazy, but she's always been crazy talented. Aramil's _gone back to schoo_ l, and two years ago Van would have laughed in his face about that, but now he just sometimes brings Aramil lunch and Aramil smiles and says "you know I could have summoned that from the fridge" and Van says "yeah whatever," and they both pretend it's not because Van wants to have lunch with his boyfriend-person-thing-love-of-his-life-maybe? 

The point is: everyone's got stuff going on. And Van has... a grappling hook. He sighs again, and kicks his feet against the stone wall. Maybe he should buy more rope. 

His stone of farspeech pings, jolting him out of his self-pity. He fumbles it out of his cloak pocket and reads the message. 

Vee: hey can one of u losers send me a photo i need to go viral again my follower count is dropping xoxo 

Van's lip twitches. He lifts his phone and takes a selfie against the sunset and presses send. What the hell. Cousin bonding! Maybe he can have _one_ family member who isn't entirely awful or dead. (Wonder what his mom would have thought of all this. Did mom know that dad was a hell demon prince thing? Filed under: lets not think about that one)

Immediately, the groupchat blows up. Heart reactions, thumbs ups. Maybe they don't need him but they still want him around. 

Vee: thxxxxx also u need a haircut

Charmie: BITCH YOURE SUPPOSED TO BE HELPING WITH DINNER 

Van swears and scrambles to his feet. Right. Dinner.


	2. timestamp: post-battledome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which our heroes leave an underwater fighting ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow you're still here? scintillating.

_Previously in this episode: our heroes participated in a fighting tourney underwater, and the big glass dome caved in because of ????, leading them to have to do a big rescue operation._

The remnants of the Battledome recede into the distance. It's loud—the drenched survivors calling out to each other and piling into boats and trying to find their families. There are children crying, but at least they're alive to cry. It all happened so fast is the thing-one minute they were pantsing Platinum Metal Guy and the next, Platinum Metal Guy was dead and they had to get everyone out. Van swears he can still feel the electricity tingling on his fist from where he hit the roof of the battledome. 

The noise grows quieter as they sail away. 

"It's too bad we can't say goodbye to Grimp," Charmie says sadly. 

"You guys saw the multiple Grimps, right? That wasn't just a oxygen-depletion hallucination or something?" Lillian says. 

"Idunno, sounds like you did too much pen," Van quips from where he's lying on the deck. His clothes are still soaked. It's getting cold. He doesn't really feel like moving. "Just kidding, yeah, there were like four of him."

"You guys never stop, huh?" Aramil says, glancing from where he's standing, steering the boat presumably back to N'goza proper. "You're impossible." He says it like it's a good thing, though. 

"Takes one to know one," Van says, raising his head to look at his boyfriend. His boyfriend who has dry clothes, which seems very appealing. "What are the chances you'll give me your shirt?"

"Why do you want my shirt?"

"Sex reasons," Van says, to the immediate mock disgust of Lil and Charmie. "Just kidding! It's dry, and I'm soaked."

"Van, you moron, you've got prestidigitation," Aramil says fondly. 

"Shit, right," Van says, and snaps his fingers to dry his clothing off. Everything is immediately more comfortable. 

"Ooh, do me next," Charmie says, and Van obliges. "Wow, electric punch guy can't remember to prestidigitate."

"I thought you weren't going to bully me!"

"It's been more than twenty-four hours," Charmie says smugly, and Van sighs theatrically. 

"I will throw you overboard," he says, but only snaps his fingers again to dry Lil's clothes off as well. 

"Thanks," Lillian says, but sounds a little distracted. "Hm. You guys don't think we should go back and help, right?"

"You just saved like, hundreds of people," Aramil says, tilting the boat so that it curves toward the shoreline. The remnants of the Battledome and the boats look like so many individual lights upon the water. "Take the night off."

"We did do that, huh," Charmie says. 

"Kinda change of pace for us," Van says. 

"Maybe this balances the scales a bit," Lillian says. "They're gonna be fine, right?"

"Yeah," Aramil says. "I called the naval guard, they're pretty competent around these parts." 

"Imagine being competent," Van says. "Couldn't be us." 

**Author's Note:**

> if you're reading this very silly shit thank u i love u


End file.
